It has been five years since "Halo 3" was released, and it looks as if "Halo" fans were more than ready for the successor

"Halo 4," which features the return of "Master Chief," was released today for Microsoft's Xbox 360.

The first-person shooter is the first game in a new trilogy of the "Halo" series. It takes place three years after "Halo 3" ended, and represents the return of the Master Chief as the protagonist.

It has been five years since "Halo 3" was released, and it looks as if "Halo" fans were more than ready for the successor.

"Because there hasn't been a game to star "Master Chief" for five years, there's a bit of a pent-up demand," said Ryan McCaffrey, Xbox Executive Editor at IGN.com.

"Halo 4's" plot is centralized around "Master Chief" and his ability to kill evil aliens while trying to save his AI friend, Cortana.

While the "Halo" series was on break, the "Call of Duty" series stepped in as the most popular games on the Xbox. Now, "Halo 4" will closely compete with "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2," which will be released next week on November 18.

Ahead of "Halo 4's" launch, Microsoft said this would be the best "Halo" yet.

"Fans worldwide will experience the biggest, most detailed 'Halo' universe yet," said Microsoft. "The game features more weapons, more enemies, more detailed animations and more ways to play with friends.

"One thing that hasn't changed is the hardware the game runs on, the Xbox 360. That was one of the challenges for the engineering team at 343 Industries (the new internal studio at Microsoft, helming the franchise): how to do more, not with less, but with the same hardware that's been around since 2005."

"Halo" was originally released in 2001. It has sold 46 million copies and generated $3 billion of revenue in the franchise since.

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced a "Halo 4" bundle, which contains a Halo 4-themed console with blue and grey coloring and a custom controller that has blue LEDs as opposed to the usual green LEDs.

The bundle, which appears to include the special edition Halo 4 console, the Halo 4 game, and two controllers, was rumored to run around $399.99 while a stand-alone controller will cost $49.99.

ya I wasted 10 bucks on it but the graphics are super ugly :D maybe i didnt get the vibe yet or something... i just started and killed one ship but its not very addictive yet. maybe hafta play more. better be so!

FTL suffers from a common problem in a lot of indie games where to make up for engaging controls, 3D graphics, and other interactivity the game play relegates the player the unenviable task of navigating context menus and managing UI boxes endlessly to get anything done. After a few hours FTL feels more like a spreadsheet editor than a space adventure. But if navigating menus and text boxes for hours and hours

I've played another indie game with promise off and on for years now called Wurm Online, so trust me I know what I speak of. It's the king of context menu abuse and gets tedious fast. For example if you want to attack something, you can't just walk up to it and press an "attack" key. Nope, you have to right click on the creature which opens up a context menu, mouse down to "Combat", which opens ANOTHER context menu, and then click "attack". Oh and you better not let the mouse cursor stray too far from the menu, or you have to repeat the whole process. Fun right?

I don't know on what planet where something like FTL offers more game play and fun over Halo4, but I think it's populated with TakinYourPoints and a few other nerds.

And yeah, killing one ship doesn't tell you anything about the game. :) Just give it a little bit for the mechanics to sink in, its super fun once you get it, plus it is randomly generated so every playthrough is very unique.

Again, super great, just give it a few minutes to sink its teeth into you. :)